St. Lawrence River

Title: St. Lawrence RiverAuthor: Jun-KoRating: PG-13 currently -- will probably be R soonNotes: *sigh* Okay! This is my first I, Robot fanfic, so please, bear with me. My style of writing isn't what you would call "fitting" for this kind of fandom, but I can't help that, so I guess everyone's just going to have to deal with my incoherent, poetic babbling. Kind of confusing because it's in present tense, and I don't usually use names for a special kind of effect... Ah, nevermind, I shouldn't really explain; it takes away the magic. But note that, yes, I am aware of the grammatical errors running amock and mating, but that's just part of my style. ^o^;;

Summary: Come with me, she says. She reaches out to him and he turns his head to look at her and sees the way the light shines through her dark hair. Come with me, and, I want to leave...

St. Lawrence RiverBy Jun-Ko

"Caught in the rage, in the fire of thingsAll the brightness that burns meI'm fumbling through like a child in the darkWhen the nakedness comes I am shocked by the colorThe glorious weight of your skinAs I let go of your hand, I was desperate to hold you again..."

~ David Usher, "St. Lawrence River"

I) Rendition

Come with me, she says. She reaches out to him and he turns his head to look at her and sees the way the light shines through her dark hair. Come with me, and, I want to leave. That's what she says. Sonny.

Leave? And go where? He doesn't understand. He is shocked by the brightness of her eyes and the clear ringing of her voice in his ears. Some unnamed emotion blankets his thoughts as he gazes at her red lips and the way her skin flares white in the sunlight, the spot of her body not covered -- a wink of flesh -- the shoulder of her loose sweater that has slipped from its place; he says, yes. He'd go anywhere for her. But...

Go where, he asks again. She doesn't answer as she turns around and walks to her room. He follows.

One look at her and he knows that she is unwell. Her face is thinner than it was since the incident with VIKI almost two weeks ago. She has been torn apart. Her faith crumbles. Once she invited him to sleep in her room (the day she said that it was okay for him to call her Susan and he said, "I'm just Sonny,"). He had spent the night studying her hands. How delicate the tendons that haunted through her skin. Muscle and sinew, bone and the fine hairs on her arm. Warm and alive -- strands of organic tissue and capillaries filled with blood like those he does not have. Her tapered fingers and long nails, incredibly fragile. He marveled at her face and memorized its lines. Hipbones haunting beneath the layers of silk and flesh. He knew that night that she had nightmares because her mouth was pinched and her eyebrows were drawn together. He knows that some nights, she doesn't dream at all; everything is too dark and heavy, submerged in her unconsciousness, wrapped in a heavy shroud of valium.

Sonny.

She says his name as she packs clothes into her bag, but she says nothing more after that.

He still does not understand the complicated chemistry of mania and obsession -- delusion. Why is she leaving? Where is she going? And will she come back?

Susan? Her name rolls off his tongue like liquid. It fits his mouth. He likes to say it because it's like a prayer, or maybe a fable. It's there but it isn't. It's sacred.

She reaches up, standing on her tip-toes to reach a sweater at the very top of her closet shelf and for the briefest of moments he can see her skin beneath her shirt, just above the waistband of her pants. Her navel. The very bottom ribs where a blue ribbon of bruises peeks out at him. Just a flash and then it is gone.

The strangest things being to come over him as he settles down onto the passenger seat her of car, listening to the combined sounds of the mechanisms within the engine as well as the soft constant whirring of the gears and gyros inside of him. The warm heat in his chest that is his second positronic core. It heightens just slightly as she slides -- full of grace -- onto her seat beside him. Frightened, he looks away. Frightened by the inappropriate thoughts about her, the thoughts that only a few days ago have started to fill his head, like sliding onto the bed beside her, or slipping a hand under the hindering fabric of her nightgown. He wants to cry.

The car starts, pulling out of the underground parking and swiftly takes them east on Lumber. The first of a thousand miles. Is it the shifting of the lights or was it the glare from the sun that makes her eyes glassier than normal? And why is he so scared of it?

Where are we going, Susan?

I can't stay here anymore, Sonny, and that's the only explanation she provides.

He can see it now. She has been emptied. Is empty. Hollow. It is not her body, no -- Sonny's eyes wander over the outline of her thin shape -- but it is her voice that sounds like a soft echo coming from within a small tube. He doesn't know it but it reminds him of the sound of shattering glass. He can feel his face, his brow ridges, pull together in worry.

It is a new light, he realizes. He's seeing her in a new light.

As she looks ahead at the road stretched out before them, he wants to reach out and touch her knee, feel the pulse of her veins, but he does not. Instead he leans back, casting her one last lingering glance, before closing his eyes and he falls asleep. As he does, Susan looks at him sadly and reaches out. Touches his hand. She wants to cry.